How to study PLO ?
Red
Red Chipper Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭✭
Hi everybody
I recently got into PLO. I'm reading my 1st book and start playing (spewing) online. Now I want to improve by reviewing some hands - I can easily see that I'm playing too wide and making med / not nutted hands going too far, but it's still hard to really have a grasp.
So I'd like to know:
- In NHLE there are some pre-set ranges. Do you know ranges for PLO as well (I could use as basis) ? I've just read some general stuff about type of hands, which is for the moment too general I think.
- Is there a similar tool as flopzilla to analyze PLO hands? As I played some hands (surely spewy by playing them too strong / far), I'd need a tool to make street by street analysis, if there is any.
Thanks
I recently got into PLO. I'm reading my 1st book and start playing (spewing) online. Now I want to improve by reviewing some hands - I can easily see that I'm playing too wide and making med / not nutted hands going too far, but it's still hard to really have a grasp.
So I'd like to know:
- In NHLE there are some pre-set ranges. Do you know ranges for PLO as well (I could use as basis) ? I've just read some general stuff about type of hands, which is for the moment too general I think.
- Is there a similar tool as flopzilla to analyze PLO hands? As I played some hands (surely spewy by playing them too strong / far), I'd need a tool to make street by street analysis, if there is any.
Thanks
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Best Answers
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TheGameKat
Posts: 3,656 -
Equilab has an Omaha version. Which book are you reading?Moderation In Moderation -
jeffnc
Red Chipper Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭✭✭
But then, it still general sayings; there are not really "ranges" in the same way as in NHLE.
With a HUD, if someone is 50/30, 30/20 or 60/40, how to understand that in range aka what hands and/or behavior should I expect ?
After so many hours on flopzilla, I can see a 20% range, a 15% range, a 3% 3bet range, linear or pole, etc. But here PLO - maybe because I'm the very start of learning the game - I really don't see the connection between % and range.
Well, I see a similarity, if not an exact analaogy. For example, 2 Holdem players with the same %, how would you know if one person would include 54s but exclude KTo, and another person is the opposite? I see PLO ranges as an extreme version of that.
There are more details in PLO. For example, most studied players know that you want to get all in with AAxx if you can, or reasonably close to it (say SPR <= 1). If you can't do that, it's not a very good idea to give away your hand with AA if the SPR is going to be too large. So if there is a raise, that player might just call if the SPR is going to be big, but reraise if he can get a lot of his stack in. It's also well known that you can try to out flop AA, but you don't want to have an A in your hand to do it. So with some players if the SPR gets to a certain point, one of them has AA, and the other does not have an A in their hand. etc.
But with PLO I guess you could say it's more important what range of 5 card hands they will have postflop, than what range of 2 card hands they will play preflop. In other words, as a hand is played, one player might be capable of having any 2 pair, while another will only have middle set or better.
In PLO/8, and especially Big O, you can usually tell what someone might have for the low, but it becomes impossible for most players to know what they have for their high hand.
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Red
Red Chipper Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭✭
For your information: I've asked Kasino Krime which software he uses for his PLO studies, and he was kind enough to reply:Kasino Krime wrote:hey man! Monkersolver, Odds Oracle, and PokerJuice are the primary ones I use
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TheGameKat
Posts: 3,656 -
@Doug Hull : you're talking about "Pot-Limit Omaha Poker" of 2008, right ?
That's it. Ten years down the road the Vegas 1/2/5 crowd still haven't read it.Moderation In Moderation
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Answers
Yeah that's where I was going.
Doesn't JNandez live in Switzerland?
Ha good to know. I'll look deeper in Equilab
I'm studying with the PLO Quickpro Manual by John "Kasino Krime" Beauprez. (I've also acquired "Win1K", as it was in an special offer package.)
It's a pretty dense book - at least for me who has 0 PLO knowledge - , with analyzed HH at the end as well. It's like reading Nietzsche: easy to read, tough to understand.
Plus, as proof of coaching quality, KK quotes a lot of books and authors he read (like Hwang, @jeffnc ) as references; to me this shows that he knows the theoretical side of PLO and is a proof of coaching quality (putting references above selling his stuff).
Yes, and Kasino Krime also explain how hands goes around - and bases his thoughts on book like Hwang. He explains how wraps goes, how suitedness is important and then is matters more, why is JT97 better than JT98 or J987, etc.
But then, it still general sayings; there are not really "ranges" in the same way as in NHLE.
With a HUD, if someone is 50/30, 30/20 or 60/40, how to understand that in range aka what hands and/or behavior should I expect ?
After so many hours on flopzilla, I can see a 20% range, a 15% range, a 3% 3bet range, linear or pole, etc. But here PLO - maybe because I'm the very start of learning the game - I really don't see the connection between % and range.
Well, I didn't know who that was until I just looked it up :)
(based on preflop action)
Good lord, that's an expensive set of books. You're looking at something close to $4,000. $500 for the Out Of Position scenarios, $1,500 for 3Bet pot scenarios - I mean, wow.
I didn't got all of them :-) ; only PLO QuickPro Manual and PLO Win1K.
OOP, 3bet etc. were also sold off, but the offer wasn't as deep as QuickPro Manual and Win1K (these 2 were smth like 70% off ! ) and it was (still is) too advanced material for me. So I didn't buy them.
Not sure if this is still relevant considering what you're studying and there ain't no one buying my books, but I think of ranges in Omaha in terms of form.
If I'm playing a 15% range UTG I mean the top 15% suited A rundown hands (AxTx98 and up), top 15% double paired hands (8877 and up, QQ66 and up), and top 15% rundowns with a gap at top and top 15% rundowns with a gap at bottom and etc.
Of course - as you suggested - one can go completely nuts trying to think about this but I find this a useful way to think about PLO ranges.
I use the propokertools ranking
I am in love
My only resource so far has been Hwang's first book. I started into the sequel trilogy. Honestly, just the first book was enough to get me to beat the 1-2 5 bring-in at Venetian, Wynn and Aria. The few times I have sat $x-$5 with $10 rock I also could see I was a favorite in the game.
I have essentially moved to PLO this year and am loving it. Nothing fancy and the opponents are just beating themselves. I find the skill level at PLO is significantly below skill level at NLHE.
While Hwang's trilogy is good and I am working through it, these advanced moves are not needed to beat these stakes.
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Agreed to an extent, however most players will find themselves in some interesting SPR situations that are not really "advanced plays" so much as simply situations that will occur regardless depending on effective stack sizes, straddle sizes, and preflop raise sizes. To wit, Advanced Pot Limit Omaha, Volume I, Part II, read all the SPR sections.
I've really enjoyed Hwang's books very much, and maybe I'll write a book (set) review. But for now, the important thing to remember is the subtitle of the book - "The Big Play Strategy". Keeping that in mind, now go look at "The New SPR Chart" on p. 96 of Advanced Vol. I, and there you will see "Big Play Territory". This should put his first book in context. Ultimately it can get pretty boring (but not unprofitable) playing simply that tight strategy because it assumes you're going to be prepared when all the money goes in, deep. Few hands can stand up to this amount of pressure.
One of the great things about his first book is that it also contains a great section on PLO/8. Between that and our very own Red Chip published book on PLO8/Big O (review pending), you will be very well prepared to play that game well too.
Yes, and there are hints from Hwang at how balance can be achieved without playing weak hands, as you might have to do in Holdem. This ultimately comes down to the larger number of 2 card combinations in PLO. For example, on p. 61 of Advanced Vol. 1, he discusses a hand involving 8643 suited, which was raised preflop, with a flop of Q75 rainbow, which at first looks pretty awesome, but in fact is kind of crap if any real money starts going in.
Now, you might think you'd have to play hands such as 8643 so that you can credibly represent a hand on a flop of Q75. But that simply isn't true. You can hit this flop even harder if you had 9864 instead (not to mention QQxx).
The point being, there are different ranges that can "hit" the same flop, but some are better than others. So yes it can be quite difficult to put someone on a range, but you will have the same advantage. And if you fold 8643 and play 9864, you will hit more or less the the same flops but have an advantage over a lot of other players.
Also my preflop raises and calls tend to be very situational, and what I showdown might be very confusing to someone trying to "put me on a hand" (wait, does he raise aces or doesn't he? etc.) It depends on how much of my stack is going in, my position, the opponents and how they play, my chance of securing the virtual button, how many players I expect or can limit it to, isolation if possible, etc. So you can't pin a percentage down to a range. I think it would be more like correlating to overall hand quality, which is harder to evaluate in PLO than in Holdem, which is simpler (you ought to be able to tell how someone values pocket pairs, aces, broadway cards, and suited connectors.)
A couple of observations... st low stakes PLO most were losing NLHE players that moved to the easier and more volatile PLO. (Where they are still losing long term but the big swings hide it and feed their adrenalin). One huge key to the game is the "run it twice" rules. One casino I play the rule his any pot over 1k, the game or stakes don't matter. At l ou w stakes PLO thus makes the game less volatile and you can bluff a lot more. Another casino I play the rule is any timed take game can run it twice. This makes the PLO game very volatile as the players will buy in short and gamble.
Probably the biest tip I learned was use 3 bets in position as much as reasonable. And all but never 3 bet from the blinds
I was planning to dive into PLO this year, but I should stick to imporve NLHE. Best advice for NLHE player thinking about jumping to PLO.
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Variety is the spice of life my friend. The more games you know, the more profitable games become available to you. Holdem is generally getting harder. It was easy 15 years ago. Omaha is already starting to progress. Nothing like playing Omaha against Holdem players just getting started!
Yes, that is the one.
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Because there are almost no game in Europe and none close to my place, and that I don't like playing online, I unfortunately couldn't really be involved in PLO
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Surely Europe is the home of PLO?
Not that I know....
I played in all casinos in Prague (CZ) - my favorite city so far - , as well as in Brussels (BE), Budapest (HU), Baden (CH), Montreux (CH), Riga (LV) and San Ġiljan (MT)*.
I went in Berlin (D) too, but it was long ago.
Mostly miss on my list Baden-Baden (D), Barcelona (E), London (UK) and Rozdanov (CZ). Maybe Paris (F), but heard very average review about their games...
In all of these places, I've seen only once a PLO game running, in Prague, but yet it was running because 4 friends traveling wanted to play PLO and were able to convince the floorman to open a table for them.
So all casinos, either they have a PLO-waiting list but no name on it or (more often) they don't even provide PLO and only NHLE.
But in general live poker is also not that big in Europe compare to US ... there are more games running at once in Las Vegas than in all the cities I've mentioned combined... !
Maybe because many countries forbid poker and/or games are too expensive, so they either play home games or online? Can't say...
* I visited 3 casinos in San Ġiljan... yet already had really a hard time to even find ONE NHLE cash game. But I went during low season (Jan-Feb), and apparently poker/casino may only run during high season of summer. So my observation about Malta might be biased despite the good poker reputation.